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Nintendo has appointed a relatively-unknown 46-year-old executive as its new boss, a surprise move in Japan’s famously conservative corporate culture.

The gaming icon said Shuntaro Furukawa, its head of global marketing, would replace the company’s 68-year-old president Tatsumi Kimishima in June.

It came as Nintendo said the success of the Switch, its latest console, had powered it to a 75pc increase in annual profits.

Mr Furukawa, who will become only the sixth president in Nintendo’s 129-year history, is not one of Nintendo’s most high-profile executives. He has worked at the company for two decades but has spent much of it outside Japan and is best known for representing the company at the Pokémon Company, the independent owner of the popular franchise.

Mr Furukawa’s appointment marks a changing of the guard at the company that last appointed a permanent chief 16 years ago. Mr Kimishima has run the company on an interim basis since 2015, when he stood in after the premature death of Satoru Iwata, who had run the company since 2002 and led it through many of its best years.

Mr Furukawa will be tasked with maintaining Nintendo’s momentum after record sales for the Switch, which it released a year ago.

The console, a hybrid between a handheld and a TV-connected device, has surpassed all expectations to become the company’s fastest selling release. It sold 15m copies in the year to the end of March, outpacing even the first-year sales of the Wii, the company’s best-selling home console to date.

Nintendo’s pre-tax profits rose from 115bn yen (£760bn) to 199.4bn yen. Operating profits, which ignore the effects of one-off events such as last year’s sale of Nintendo’s stake in the Seattle Mariners baseball team, reached 178bn yen, their highest level since 2010.

Sales of the Switch in its first year have been boosted by die-hard Nintendo fans returning to the fold and titles featuring the company’s key series, such as Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda. The company is now seeking to expand its appeal with new items such as a set of cardboard accessories known as Labo, due to be released on Friday.